Ashley Heclo

Friday, 01 February 2019 12:14
Written by Administrator

My second Arrowhead DNF report. It's Wednesday afternoon, almost
3pm. I should be finishing soon. Instead I'm in the hotel room I've been
in since Monday night. The mixture of emotions is difficult to handle.
Northern Minnesota calls to me every winter but it's a long and
expensive trip to make just to fail repeatedly. Is it failure though?
I've learned something every time.

You see, I finished the first time.
Sometimes I think that was my greatest failure, because it came “easily”
in hindsight. Although nothing comes easily on the Arrowhead Trail,
that first year I came there was mild weather and a hard and fast trail.
Last year was an unpredicted cold and a lack of training on my part.
This year I was ready. Oh, except for that foot that's been bugging me
for 6 months or so. Not enough to stop me, although some days have had
me in tears of frustration and pain, but enough that

I haven't run since
September in the hopes that I could arrive in International Falls with
fitness and pain free. And I was for about 10 miles. The next 25 miles
were spent with the mantra “not” on the left foot strike “real” on the
right foot strike on repeat in my head and at times out loud. On flat
ground I could almost convince myself that it was a pain I could take.
One I could muscle through. But on even the slightest incline I found
myself limping, the sensation of tearing and pulling all I could feel.
“I can't limp through -40 wind chill with the hills just continuing to
multiply and elongate” I thought.

As the lengthy northern Minnesota dusk
turned to full dark I made my way into the Gateway checkpoint at 35
miles, not even bothering to bring my thermoses inside with me. The
volunteers there, whom I've come to know well over the last 3 years
(plus one spectating), all tried very hard to change my mind but part of
the difficulty of winter ultras is being smart enough to know when your
time's up. Some positive takeaways from this year are that my gear was
pretty well dialed in finally.

I have to figure out a better pants
system but of the 80% runner drops I was one of the few who didn't have
moisture issues. This makes me think that I very well could have been
successful as I had several more layers available to me to get through
the night. Also, something new I did this year, hot soup in a thermos is
an amazing way to get fluids, calories and salt in. Will definitely be
doing that again.

Some things I really need to work on are getting over
my fear of carrying water on my person, either with a bladder or some
soft flasks or something. Stopping to drink every hour is incredibly
time consuming. Speaking of time, the next few months will need to be
spent getting healthy so I am able to get fast enough to stay much
further away from things like cutoffs. Although I got to Gateway with
plenty of time to head back out I was definitely at my threshold as far
as a maintainable pace for 3 days of effort. If I can get my walking
pace closer to 15 min miles with a pulk, I'll be much happier.

All in
all I'm always happy to be in Minnesota, regardless of the season or the
outcome and really glad to see some of my favorite people again. The
crazies in a room of crazies.